I am a CNA, I am the person who helps your loved ones, children and maybe even yourself with everyday aspects. I am the person who helps your grandmother get ready in the morning or helps your uncle eat his lunch. I am slapped, bit and yelled at more times than not. I change diapers and clean up vomit daily. I wake up early and stay up late to help you when you whenever you need me. With all of this hard and tiring work comes the rewarding parts. I get to play card games like Go Fish and learn new ones from the residents like Bridge. I sit and talk with residents and hear their stories from when they are young. I get to soothe your premature baby and sit with her as she heals and grows until she goes home. I play board games and color with children who are suffering from chronic illness and cancer. I hold your mothers hand as I tell her it’s okay to go and that she is so loved. I am a CNA, and though I may not be for long I put my entire heart and soul into it and love every second. I have long desired for the chance to work in a medical setting and working in an assisted living home has made me realize that the job comes with so much more than the job description entails. When you take the CNA certification course, it does not even come close to preparing you for what your clinicals will entail. You study and learn to prepare yourself for that moment where it’s up to you to be knowledgeable to do your job. It’s difficult and intimidating to know that you are at the bottom
In a perfect world, all of the units of a team work together. In the real world, many people know that this is not a perfect world. Therefore, if an individual becomes a CNA they will have the chance to make a real difference in the life of a person suffering from an illness, disease, or disability. People that become CNAs before becoming a nurse learn good communication skills with patients, families, and other healthcare staff. For instance, someone with CNA experience on their first day of clinical rotations, will already know what to expect because of prior CNA experience. Becoming a CNA is an excellent way to help determine if nursing is a good career choice for an individual, and nursing students who have some exposure to health care by being a CNA may seem to feel more comfortable when it comes to their nursing classes. . According to Campus Explorer (2015) being a CNA is proven to be beneficial when it comes to nursing clinical rotation (para 3).
Being a CNA is hard and taxing on people mentally and physically. It a tiresome job that turns most people off from the start. But, I do think joy can be found in this job. Most will say that being a CNA is like being a glorified butt wiper which I mean yes we do wipe butts but there is a lot more to the job then that. There is relationships that are built with the residents and patients that is unique to a CNA. My job is hard and sometimes I just want to throw in the towel. But then there's that moment that changes it all and makes you love the job even though it very hard. Being a CNA is all about the passion, relationships with people and hard work.
It is no secret that communication is key when providing direct patient care in a skilled nursing facility. However, there is a noticeable lapse in the communication between the care team when providing care to the individual or groups of individuals. Two main parts of any care team are the registered nurse and the certified nursing assistant, as these are the two people whom have the most direct and impactful roles with residents in a skilled facility. The Registered Nurse and the Certified Nursing Assistant play similar roles in providing patient care, but have different roles in its entirety. The role of the Registered Nurse (RN) is defined as having the competency and skill to provide direct and indirect health care to individuals, their families, and communities around them. Services are also provided designed to give out medications, to promote comfort or healing, promote healing, and to also provide the dignity of their patients and patient’s families (American College of Rheumatology, 2015).
I want to be an Advanced Practice Nurse. I complete similar work every day so I thought to myself, why not get the certification for it? As I called medical doctors and physicians assistants about sick patients, I found myself suggesting and telling them what orders the patient needs. I was struck with a sudden realization; I needed to go back to school.
My goal since day one of high school was to join and complete the Certified Nursing Assistant license’s program. I kept my grades up all years and my attendance sharp so I would be a step ahead of other applicants. Before I knew it, I was starting senior year which meant it was time to turn in my application. The application had many questions; the normal ones like who, what, and why. I turned the application into the teacher and the wait began to see if I was accepted. Little did I know that this was the first of many anxious waits this year. Completing my goal of becoming a licensed CNA would become one of the most nerve racking process in my life.
A day in the life as a CNA (Certified Nurse Aide) can have its ups and its downs. As a CNA you can work in a couple different areas of the nursing field, you have options of where you want to be and you are not finite to any certain place. Most CNA’s start out working in a nursing home then exude to other places such as hospitals. As a nurse aide you have many options of being in a certain field of nursing. That is what I love about nursing; it is versatile and you can work wherever you want in the country. You can travel and see places you haven’t seen while doing what you love to do as a career.
Being a Certified Nursing Assistant each skill is valuable as the next some of the qualites that an CNA should have is excellent verbal and communications skills, Astute observation skills, ability to follow rules and protocols , Time management and organiatiol skills,Empany and compassion.
It is not a crime to dream. Every individual sets high exceptions for what career they want. Some dream of becoming the President of the United States of America, a scientist, or even a therapist. I want a career where I can make an impact on the world. My whole life revolves around wanting to work in the medical field. My dream is becoming a nurse practitioner. I want to help care for people, their families, and to work in the field where everyday is different. I want to hold the family members hands and tell them that everything is alright. I not only want to make a difference in the lives of my patients, i also hope to make a difference in the nursing and medical field in general. to achieve the dream of becoming a nurse practitioner, I must drop the habits that hold me back and slow me down right now. Bad habits not only slow my progress my habits but also keep me from moving forward. Giving up too soon, my lack of focus, and my perfectionism hold me back in everyday life.
At this moment in time I am unsure of the nursing role that I am seeking, I am learning more about family nurse practitioner and acute care nurse practitioner as the days go by. Each field has its benefits, and whether I choose to go with FNP or Acute care I know that I will be making a positive difference in the field of nursing. Although I am a little bit unsure at this time, I feel that I am leaning more towards acute care. I love the fact that a nurse practitioner can work in many different specialties like being a nurse practitioner midwife, to working in the emergency department or even working at a clinic in a rural area, the possibilities for nurse practitioners are endless and I am very grateful to be in this program. Working at the hospital provides exposure to many different ailments, and being able to focus on one specific ailment and treat it is where my interest is in. I find the cardiac system to be complex and interesting, arterial lines, chest tubes, and hemodynamics are very interesting to me.
“Good morning Mary. Are you ready to get up?” I seem to say these words a lot. I work as a CNA at the St.Elizabeth’s Health Care Center. In order to become a CNA you have to take a course and pass a test. I am going to tell you about the teacher that made this class a very good experience. Her name is Melissa Rebehl. I’m going to tell you a little about what we had to do and why she was such a good teacher.
You need to be good at listening because if you are an assistant CNA then you will have to follow rules of your boss. Some more skills that you should have are organization skills because you will be handling with people's medical information and you need to make sure you don't lose it. The education that you are required to have to be a CNA is that would want you to have some training jobs and they say that Red Cross offer some training for that. You will also need to complete an accredited CNA program to work as a CNA. Most CNA programs range from 75 to 150 hours and include some classroom coursework.
I knew I could be a nurse when I watched blood ooze from my brother’s face. His eyes dripping tears, and body shaking from being scared, he did not know what to do. I however, did not flinch once when I wiped the blood off his small face and hands. He was just two and I remember thinking how I had to fix him. I had to make sure his nose, his forehead, and the of side of his face was okay. I did not think twice about touching blood, or how his whole nose was black and blue. In that moment I was selfless. I chose nursing because I am capable of putting others before me. I am selfless enough to understand what it means to be a nurse, and have to be a mother, a daughter, and a whole family in a patient’s time of need. I am independent, and strong enough to deal with challenges and make the right decisions. In my soul I know I am meant to help people and fix their hurting and sadness. I chose being a nurse, because I am
Going back to when I was a novice nurse, I was nervous, scared, afraid of making medication error, charting errors or fail to recognized patients worsening symptoms. These fears, made me vigilant, focused and kept me on my toes at all times. No matter which part of nursing I ended up as I grew up the from medical surgical nursing to stepdown unit nursing to intensive care nursing, I felt those fears in every step of my growth and they helped me be a better nurse for my pateints. Today, I am in the advanced practitioner program to become a nurse practitioner who is responsible for: interviewing, assessing, diagnosing, counseling and treating patients. To provide safe and quality healthcare, I am expected to have good critical thinking and decision making abilities (Maten-Speksnijder, Grypdonck, Pool, & Streumer, 2012). while I can recognize clinically deteriorating patients and recommend treatments, I am now responsible for providing treatments. I am now recognizing that facts about being not only responsible for the patient, but also to provide safe care that keeps the patient out of the hospital and out of the ICU. Knowing these facts, I am yet again, faced with the fears of my limited clinical practice knowledge as a practitioner. The amount of information that I have received and learned during this clinical rotation was both exciting and overwhelming at the same time, because I realized as a novice student nurse practitioner (NP), the limited depth of
Dr. Benner has categorized nursing into five levels of stages; novice, advanced beginner, competent, proficient, and expert (Petiprin, A, 2015). According to Dr. Benner’s stages of clinical competence, I view myself as in competent stage. I have been a nurse in the surgical floor for nine months, but I started as a certified nurse assistant in the same surgical floor for two years, which helped me to raise my career into a competent stage. According to Dr. Benner, “competency nurses recognize patterns and nature of clinical situation more quickly and accurately” (Petiprin, A, 2015). I believe myself that my first career certified nurse assistant helped me to become a better nurse, by providing a basic foundation for my professional nursing.
In fact, there are several reasons why I chose nursing as my profession. First and foremost is that I want to focus on changing people’s lives (Nurse Journal, 2016). As a nurse, I would study the life's value when I would be seeing individuals struggling to remain alive. Since I am fully aware that each life's breadth is a gift, I would, therefore, understand this lesson further as I would be nursing various patients daily. I greatly respect human life, I possess strong values and I am compassionate for empathy and suffering, factors that have further attracted me to the nursing profession. Second, nursing profession allows continuous learning. As I like learning, I would possess unlimited opportunities for advancing my medical knowledge. As such, I would capable of choosing to work in various departments, train to become a medical assistant and as well enter the nursing management where I would grow and mentor new nurses through sharing my knowledge